


Talk to Me

by thatawkwardfriend



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angry John, Angst, Crying Sherlock, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, The Tarmac Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 03:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8234977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatawkwardfriend/pseuds/thatawkwardfriend
Summary: John confronts Sherlock about what happened on the tarmac and asks what he always meant to say to him but never did.





	

“Hey, Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

“What was the thing you wanted to tell me?”

“What thing?”

“You know, the… thing. Back on the tarmac.” John swallowed. Even months later it still pained him to think about the time he almost lost Sherlock forever – again. Except that time, he still would’ve been alive. Just unreachable. Which almost made it worse. 

“You, er, you said there was something you’ve always meant to say to me but never did.”

Sherlock raised his head slightly from his microscope. He was still looking at it, but his vacant eyes showed that his mind was elsewhere. His shoulders had slumped like a guilty child being confronted by his parents. 

“What was it you were going to say?”

“I was making a joke, John. To see you laugh one last time before I… left.” 

“No you weren’t. You were going to say something else. I could tell.”

“No I wasn’t.” His demeanor had closed off again. He was back to peering into his microscope and avoiding John’s gaze at all costs. 

“Yes, Sherlock, you were.”

“No, John. I was not.” His tone was sharper, more final. Sherlock was back to his work and meant for John to leave the conversation there.

He clenched his fists. It had always pissed him off when Sherlock shut him out, but this was different. 

“Shouldn’t you be heading home?” Sherlock asked absent mindedly, gently adjusting the dials on the microscope. 

Something ticked in John. “Stop it,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. 

Without moving his head, Sherlock glances sideways at him, eyebrows raised.   
“I’m sorry?”

“This. This shutting me out. Refusing to communicate with me. Just stop it. Do you realize how much could’ve been avoided if you would just talk to me, Sherlock? You were almost killed by that bloody cabbie because you ran after him without me. We almost died at that damn pool because you decided would be a good idea to rendezvous with a criminal mastermind by yourself. And then there’s when you fell…” His voice faltered a little here. He took a few deep breaths to regain his composure and continued when he trusted his himself to speak again. Sherlock was back in his microscope, ignoring his words and refusing to meet his eye.

“Sherlock,” he started, breathing heavily out of repressed rage. He spoke slowly with his voice low and barely controlled. “I have put up with so much from you. You’ve almost gotten us killed multiple times, you’ve run off without me on cases, your bloody experiments have nearly blown up the flat more than once. You’re an irrational, insufferable, stubborn pain in the arse sometimes, but you know what? I’ve stuck around. The least you could do is show some humanity for once in your damn life and answer me when I’m talking to you, dammit. Sherlock!” 

Sherlock, still buried in his microscope, was now turned completely away from John so he couldn’t see him at all. More frustrated than before, John clenched his teeth. Here he was trying to get somewhere with Sherlock. Trying to rebuild their relationship after the whole incident with Mary. And the stubborn man was simply ignoring him. 

“Sherlock, look at me.” No response. He remained with his back turned and faced the microscope.

John stomped forward. He grabbed the back of Sherlock’s chair and swung it around so he would be forced to face him. 

_“Sherlock!”_ Oh… 

What John expected when pulling Sherlock away from his microscope was an angry detective on his hands. What he did not expect were clenched eyes, a red nose, and shiny, tear stricken cheeks. 

_Shit…_

John kneeled in front of him. “Shit, Sherlock. I’m sorry. Don’t cry, please.” He placed his hands on his knees. 

“Sherlock, look at me,” he coaxed, much more gently this time. “Please… please let me in.” He took the detective’s wet face in his hands and angled his head towards his own. Sherlock sniffled softly in response.

“Talk to me,” he pleaded. All he got was Sherlock clenching his eyes shut harder and hiccupping softly. John patiently brushed the tears off his cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. 

“Talk to me,” he repeated in the ghost of a whisper. Sherlock opened his eyes finally. They were completely pink and the widest and most vulnerable John had ever seen them. 

“Hey there,” John said with a with a weak smile when he could look Sherlock in the eye again. 

“John, please don’t,” Sherlock said. His voice was hoarse and cracked.

“Why not? Please tell me,” John resumed stroking his cheeks with his thumbs. As normal friends would do, he said mentally. He knew he was crossing many lines here, but his and Sherlock’s relationship was never what anyone could call “normal” anyway. “You know you can tell me anything, Sherlock.” 

Sherlock placed his own hand over John’s and leaned into his touch. 

“What were you going to say to me?” 

“I can’t, John. You would never… I’m not worth…”

“Sherlock, listen to me. You are a man with a brilliant mind as well as a brilliant heart. Most people don’t see that but I know you. And I know it’s there. I’ve seen it, and I can say for certain that it’s the most beautiful part of you, hands down.” 

Sherlock was now looking at John with a shy fondness he had never seen on him before. His eyes were getting glassier by the second and he seemed to have stopped breathing.

“You can call yourself a sociopath all you want. You can pretend you’re heartless and immune to emotions and have no conscious. But at the end of the day, I know you better than anyone, and I know that’s not who you are. You’re my best friend.”

He punctuated each sentence by swiping a tear off his face with his thumb.

“You are a human being.” Another tear.

“And you are by far the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I don’t want to ever again hear you say you’re not worth something. Do you hear me?”  
He waited for a response. When Sherlock nodded ever so slightly, with his bottom lip protruding out, he continued. 

“Good. Now whatever it is that you think you can’t tell me, or that you think I wouldn’t take well, just know that –”

“I love you.” It was barely there. The faintest whisper that slipped past those plush lips. But there was no mistaking those three words. 

“God, I love you, John,” he sobbed silently into John’s hands, barely able to hold himself up. “I love you… I love you…” he repeated in broken whispers. 

John couldn’t reply just yet. Of all the things he thought Sherlock was keeping from him, he never thought that was anywhere in the realm of possibilities. He had accepted long ago that his feelings would forever be unrequited and had stopped trying figure out Sherlock’s romantic and sexual orientation. But this… it was a good thing Sherlock was repeating it over and over again into his palms or he would have thought he hallucinated it. 

No, John didn’t trust himself to open his mouth just yet. Instead he just held Sherlock’s face in one hand and brushed the curls on the side of his head with the other. “Shhh…” he coaxed, stroking him softly. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” John asked gently when Sherlock’s shaking had calmed down a bit. 

“Couldn’t… Mary…. Not safe… Baby…” he stuttered out between hiccups. 

“Okay, shhh…” John tried to calm him more as he clearly couldn’t speak just yet. “It’s okay, love.” 

This stopped Sherlock’s broken sobs abruptly. “Love?” he asked with his eyes. To be honest, John didn’t even mean to say it. It had just sort of slipped out. 

“Did you-?”

John cut him off by leaning in and pressing the gentlest kiss on his mouth. Just a chaste brush of the lips. The moment was electrified, the air so heavy with tension that neither of them moved for several seconds. John lingered there on his lips, both of them still as statues and then pulled back looking up at Sherlock. 

Their mutual silence saturated the room. John took the opportunity to observe Sherlock’s face. His eyebrows were furrowed in confusion, his eyes intense and focused on him. Neither spoke. It seemed Sherlock’s brain was on overdrive trying to comprehend what had just happened, so John broke the silence first.

“Sherlock.” He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He didn’t even twitch. John was unsure as to whether or not he was even breathing. 

John raised his eyebrows at him in question, silently begging for a response. A word, a look, anything.

“So, in fact…” Sherlock started, his puzzled expression unchanged. 

“Yes?”

“You… you mean…”

John smiled in encouragement.

“You also…” 

“Yeah, of course.” John chuckled warmly. He resumed his previous careless strokes in the hair right above Sherlock’s ear. He leaned in a pressed another kiss on his lips, this time surer of himself. 

“Of course I do.” He pecked a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “I love you too.” A peck to the other corner. “Always have.”

He pulled back to see Sherlock’s expression was still set in stone. When he finally moved, he lifted his hand and placed it delicately on his lips. 

Their eyes locked again, but with this time it wasn’t in question. In those clear blue-green eyes, John saw his future ahead of him. He saw himself living a happy life and growing old and retiring somewhere quiet. All with Sherlock by his side. He looked in his eyes and saw the one love of his life. 

Sherlock’s face finally relaxed, and he let out a soft, breathy laugh. One last tear trickled down his face and onto John’s thumb. John took Sherlock’s hand away from his mouth and kissed each fingertip in tender admiration.

“Alright?” he asked between kisses. Sherlock managed a shaky nod in return.

“So this means… will you… stay? Here? With me?”

“If you’ll have me back here, I’d like to stay.”

“And you won’t leave?”

“No. Never again.”


End file.
